Handmade Artisanal Cider

We are a family-owned cidery nestled in the heart of apple country. Our mission is to produce small batch, artisanal cider from locally sourced ingredients. We dream big and believe life is too short to drink a bad glass of cider.

It's all about the juice.

At Ponyshack, we are serious about our apples. The foundation of any cider starts with the freshest local apples. We work with local apple orchards in the heart of apple country near our small cidery Boxborough, Massachusetts. With the help of the orchardists we work with, we buy crates and crates of different varieties of apples throughout the season and then blend them together to get just the right amount of sweetness, acidity, and tartness for our different cider blends and flavors.

At the peak of flavor, we grind our apples by hand and press them in our bladder press. We strain and filter the juice and blend it to develop the correct sugar content for all of our varieties. Only the best juice makes it into a bottle of Ponyshack Cider!

Perfect "Pear"ings

We combine our excellent cider with some fantastic other ingredients like pears, ginger, blueberries, and we even infuse our cider with whiskey by aging it for months in former barrels from nearby distilleries.

While traditional apple cider is the purest expression of the drink, we also love to experiment in the shack and find the best fruits and flavors to blend with our artisanal cider. We are constantly blending and experimenting to find the next great flavor of Ponyshack!

Nate McKinley, Apple Enthusiast

Why I Started Pony Shack

Hi, I am Nate McKinley and I started Ponyshack Cider to share with you my love of hard cider from the center of the apple growing region in Massachusetts. I have always had a deep love of hard apple cider, and after trying many different kinds I could never find a cider that I truly loved. So, I decided to try and make one!

It all started with a home-brew cider kit, where I would blend and experiment with different apple varietals to find the right flavor profile. I wanted a cider that wasn't too sweet, had that juicy delicious apple taste, and just the right amount of effervescence. I spent hours and hours in my homemade "lab" (actually my basement) until I found the perfect recipe. I started sharing it with my friends and family, and they loved it! When requests kept pouring in for me to make more, I thought I was onto something, thus Ponyshack was born.

I soon turned my garage into a cider production facility and started making more and more cider and blending and experimenting with different fruits, flavors, and more apple varietals. I am hard at work trying to bring you the freshest, crisp hard apple ciders from all of New England.

The Pony Shack

What's with the name?

The name Pony Shack cider comes from the small wooden horse barn behind our house in Boxborough.